http://www.acnestudios.com/editorial/anna-lewenhaupt
GHOST RIDER
As a Fine Art student at Central St Martins, Anna Lewenhaupt illustrates, performs, paints, sings and reads your palm, all the while extolling the virtues of old-school divas like Liza Minelli. Claiming to be a gypsy at heart, Lewenhaupt’s work is influenced by her travels as she sketches fluid characters and magic landscapes that float between worlds. Here she talks to Acne Studios about her multidisciplinary work, the importance of never growing up, and how she tries to bring a special kind of feng shui into her art.
Acne Studios: How do you express yourself creatively?
Anna Lewenhaupt: I illustrate, draw and sketch as well as sing in a band with no name. I make videos and collage-films, which I also do the music for. In addition, I do live performances where I play with characters; my specialty tends to be old ladies and divas. Being involved in theatre and music is a good balance to the often solitary work of an illustrator or painter. Exploring the self through theatricality and masquerade has always interested me, and the performance work as well as the drawings and videos all represent inner and outer worlds for me. Usually, I hate explaining what my work is about, since it can change from day to day. The unconscious, can come out in a drawing and tell us things about ourselves, almost like looking at in a mirror.
How do you separate your various artistic practices?
I don’t draw any lines really between my painting, video-work, performances and illustrations. It is all part of the same creative process for me, the only difference being the different media. I mean, an intriguing illustration of something, even if found in a tiny corner of a book or a magazine, can be as powerful to me as a huge painting or piece of music.
How would you best describe the way you work?
Above all I would say that I’m a romantic. Magic can be found in many places, and I feel like fantasies are not something we outgrow. My imagination is constantly at work and I always like to re-invent the world around me. I remember looking through my aunt’s old books of Aubrey Beardsley illustrations as a child. I loved the strength and simplicity of those black and white pictures. There is so much one can do with only black and white. The depth one can create with simple black ink lines, the power of filled space versus empty space. It’s the feng shui of drawing.
Anna Lewenhaupt: I illustrate, draw and sketch as well as sing in a band with no name. I make videos and collage-films, which I also do the music for. In addition, I do live performances where I play with characters; my specialty tends to be old ladies and divas. Being involved in theatre and music is a good balance to the often solitary work of an illustrator or painter. Exploring the self through theatricality and masquerade has always interested me, and the performance work as well as the drawings and videos all represent inner and outer worlds for me. Usually, I hate explaining what my work is about, since it can change from day to day. The unconscious, can come out in a drawing and tell us things about ourselves, almost like looking at in a mirror.
How do you separate your various artistic practices?
I don’t draw any lines really between my painting, video-work, performances and illustrations. It is all part of the same creative process for me, the only difference being the different media. I mean, an intriguing illustration of something, even if found in a tiny corner of a book or a magazine, can be as powerful to me as a huge painting or piece of music.
How would you best describe the way you work?
Above all I would say that I’m a romantic. Magic can be found in many places, and I feel like fantasies are not something we outgrow. My imagination is constantly at work and I always like to re-invent the world around me. I remember looking through my aunt’s old books of Aubrey Beardsley illustrations as a child. I loved the strength and simplicity of those black and white pictures. There is so much one can do with only black and white. The depth one can create with simple black ink lines, the power of filled space versus empty space. It’s the feng shui of drawing.
Have your you always drawn?
I used to make little magazines and books as a child, I always liked the format of a book. I remember being obsessed, already as a very small child, with the thin black ink pens my dad kept in his office. Especially when the ink was about to finish and the drawn lines would thin out even more and reach perfection just before dying out completely. Still today, whenever I happen to go into an art shop, I always go on a quest to find the absolute thinnest tiniest black ink pen there is. I love those microscopically thin little lines and their contrast to vast, endless spaces.
What inspires you when you draw?
Strange figures often take shape on a piece of paper as I draw. They could be what you want them to be; enormous mountains or tiny microscopic molecular shapes. I often see faces in my drawings, and the features of abstract landscapes still tend to resemble my own shape, or people who are close to me. I lived with my cousin for a while and my drawings started to look like her; a tree would suddenly have her posture.
How do you see yourself evolving as an artist?
Never to grow up! I want to be able to do what I love doing, creating and discovering. Inspiration is everywhere, but the trick is to see it. I still have so many unfinished ideas so maybe my aim is to finish a few. But ideas, like everything else, tend to change. Maybe my aim is to stay full of ideas.
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